Booman Tribune is a self-defined progressive community.
That being said, there are probably as many different ways of approaching electoral politics represented in this community as there are users here.
Some of us come here from a background heavy in progressive issue activism (like the anti-war, civil rights and gay rights movements) and our intersection with electoral politics has been mainly through legislative pressure and protest. Some of us have spent years working diligently for third parties like the Green Party, or organizations like ACORN or the Sierra Club that often find themselves outside the traditional two-party zone. For some of us, the point of entry into electoral politics has been the issue of election reform…whether as a result of the 2000 presidential election or the more recent movement in opposition to electronic voting and the voter suppression of 2004. Others of us are mainstream Democratic progressive activists who’ve participated in the political movements that rose up in support of Howard Dean or MoveOn.org or in progressive labor politics. Finally, as progressives, many of us do not define our “politics” within traditional narrow channels: what’s “political” or “electoral” is even a subject of open debate. Getting real, most of us are some combination of the above.
This series is meant for the whole of the Booman Tribune community. It’s meant to be useful. It’s meant to be collaborative. What I’d like to do here is to provide a forum that can help us discuss how we progressive political activists here at BMT intersect with electoral politics. If you’re interested, please join me below…
Let me state the obvious.
Voting is important. Elections are important. Candidates and elected officials are important. The legislation our govenment passes and the regulations it enforces in many ways define the fabric of our lives. Our entire legal and governmental system begins and ends with what happens at the ballot box. Under our constituional form of government, elections define the playing field even though they respresent only the “beginning of the story.”
What I’d like to do with this series is open up a discussion of how we here at BMT intersect with electoral politics: ie. elections, candidates, platforms. Since this is the start of a series, I’d like to make clear that I am open-ended about how this project will play out. Within the limitations of addressing electoral politics, I want this project to be useful to as broad a segment of this community as possible.
There are, however, some rough goals that I have for this series:
A) I’d like to see us come up with a rough working definition of what “progressive” means for us when we apply it to candidates running for office in the U.S. political system. We may not agree on every point, but I think this kind of a “platform” discussion is worth having.
B) I’d like this series to help us identify candidates and elected officials from the national down to the local level who meet our BMT consensus about what “progressive politics” means.
C) I’d also like this series to provide a forum where we can identify candidates, elected officials and organizations who BEST represent progressive politics on specific issues. For example, as one goal of this project, I’d like to work with BooTribbers to identify candidates and elected officials who are our best allies in working for election reform. Other areas of focus might be the environment, or reproductive rights, or racial justice.
If there’s a guiding sensibility to this project for me, it’s this. In my experience writing online, the process of defining progressive politics has often essentially been negative and repetitive. Year after year, we have the same battles about “third parties” and “sell-out Dems”…about “single issue politics” and “the lesser of two evils.” And when it does come time to rally around candidates, strategies oriented around winning (which, is, of course, critical) tend to trump discussion of what our positive first principles are.
My goal with this project is to be positive and constructive…to seek affirmative answers to the questions we find important. What candidates, what elected officials best represent our views? What organizations best mobilize and intersect with the political system using our values? What is the common ground that we here at BMT can define to stake out what progressive means for us and how do we then communicate that progressive vision in the U.S. political system?
I don’t see this series so much as something I’m writing…as much as a discussion forum/research project that we are collaborating on. (That is, of course, if people choose to participate.) Hopefully this can be a project that will generate some defined content useful for all of us…ie. lists and links…and provide an interesting and relevant discussion in that process.
Ultimately, these posts will form a kind of database that we all can use for future reference. For this process to truly succeed, however, will involve all of us contributing more than just opinions. This series comes with the header: some research required. (If you’re interested in helping me with this project as we go forward or have links to other efforts of this sort, feel free to email me at kidoakland”at”comcast”dot”net.)
Finally, I want to be clear that I can anticipate that for many readers here, discussion of elections AT ALL is impossible to do outside of the context of discussing election reform and verified voting. My hope is that this series will provide a context to do just that. I think we can all agree that identifying the candidates, officials and organizations that are most effectively fighting for election reform is a critical step. Whether it’s a potential “national leader” on this issue, like Debra Bowen who is the Democratic candidate for California Secretary of State, or a local county election official in your home town, we all can agree that identifying and compiling these names is an important part of the process of making real change.
So, let’s begin at the most general point, with an open ended question.
Question: As a progressive, how do you intersect with electoral politics? ie. What has your experience been with elections and candidates and what does electoral politics mean to you? What are your thoughts about this subject?
::::
(Ed. note/heads up: The next piece will be asking for the “Top Five” (or so) planks of your progressive political platform. The piece following that will ask for your “Top Five” (or so) progressive elected officials or candidates. And the piece following that will be an open call asking for the names of your “Top Five” progressive candidates, elected officials and organizations working on election reform.)
I’ve been dragged into electoral politics against my will. I don’t really want to be here. I am not by nature an overtly political person. Like most Americans of my generation, I grew up thinking my country was basically good. I thought our government and our culture were fundamentally, no pun intended, progressive and secular, inclusive and tolerant of a diverse range of viewpoints. I thought that, while most Americans profess some form of religious belief, we all shared a basically rational, scientific, secular view of our world and our nation. I thought, as I think most Americans thought, that our government was inherently good and basically ran by itself. We all went to the polls every couple of years and voted for the guy we liked best and everything just worked like it was supposed to.
The election of 2000 disabused me of that naive view. I confess I really wasn’t paying all that much attention. I was lukewarm about Gore, but I knew it was obvious to the casual observer that he was much preferrable to the nutcase from Texas. It took a while for all that messiness in Florida to penetrate my bubble. The Supreme Court decision effectively awarding the presidency to Bush deflated it utterly. Still, I thought, 2000 was a fluke, a weird anomaly. We’d put up with Bush for four years and then toss him out on his ass. Silly me. 2004 was a bucket of water in the face.
I find myself coerced into political activism by a gang of thugs who have hijacked my country. My beautiful, progressive country has been hijacked by a small but disciplined cabal intent on replacing our representative democracy with a fascist theocracy. I don’t want to be politically active. I want to get on with my life making a living, raising my children, doing the things that matter to me personally. But first I have to take my country back.
When you say you want to “take our country back”…what do you think of Howard Dean and DFA, ie. Democracy for America?
One of the things I’ve experienced with DFA is that it would be pretty demanding if you don’t want to be “politically active” ie. going to meetings is a big part of DFA.
When you think of being “politically active”…what does that mean to you? Democratic party stuff? Meetings? Lots of “folding chair” type events. Door knocking and phone calling?
I’m sad to say that my “activity” is more internal than anything else. I live in a neon county in a red state. If the Democratic party has any living presence in my area, I haven’t been able to find it.
I am trying to educate myself. Like I said, it took a while to penetrate my bubble. The more I learn about the political reality in America, the angrier I get. For the first time in my life I am contributing what I can afford to candidates who interest me. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
I have two stickers on my car. One says “Impeach Bush” in stark black and white. It is the first and I think the only such sticker in my county. A month or so ago someone passed me on the interstate, honked and gave me a thumbs up. Friday a stranger in the next lane at a stop light motioned me to roll down my window and said, “I like your sticker. Impeach Bush!” The other says “Al Gore, President 2008.” Small gestures, I know. My little exercise of the First Amendment.
I have written letters to my Senators and my Congressman. Inhofe, Coburn, and Lucas. Rather like shouting at the tide I’m afraid.
Most of the people I work with are still asleep. They repeat VRNM talking points they’ve heard from corporate media as if they were common knowledge, conventional wisdom. I challenge them when I can. I make them walk back the talking points, or at least engage their brain to defend them.
I have found a few sympathetic souls in the process. For a long time I thought I was the only one in the county to the left of Rush Limbaugh. Turns out there are a few more of us. If there is no Democratic establishment in the county, there will be before 2008.
but “Shouting at the Tide” would be a great name for a national blog for exactly the kind of letters and op/ed pieces you’ve been writing.
Think about it. Citizens in districts with GOP dinosaurs could have a place to publish their letters of opposition. Alone, yes, you all are like Don Quixote…Shouting at the Tide…
but together, there’d probably be some national press that would pay attention. And I’m sure some “Big Blogs” would give a shout as well.
Think about it.
If you want someone at the top of our political structure, you should start with Russ Feingold and the late Paul Wellstone. I’m tempted to say Al Gore, but he’s become progressive as a ‘retired politician’; he wasn’t particularly one when he was involved in electoral politics.
Above all, though, I believe that progressives speak the truth; it is the truth that trickles down to their beliefs. While I defined ‘progressive’ a little differently than I think most BTers would be comfortable with, perhaps you mean to say which politicians espouse liberals politics the best while remaining free of the constraints of the turgid political system, k/o?
I almost get the impression that “progressive” implies for you: free of the corruption that comes with Two Party American politics. (ie. fundraising, corporate cash, the inevitable wheeling and dealing.)
The politicians you mention, Feingold and Wellstone, are the ones most known for being outsiders to that kind of politics. It seems your support of Gore is based on his being outside that as well. You bring up a good point, I think: one huge difference in how we perceive Al Gore now is that he is not tied up in raising money for politics all the time.
We see him when he’s on the road talking about the things he’s really passionate about. In 2000, especially before the convention, that was not how he was perceived.
The pre-Gore conception is the one that most people have. I have always admired Al Gore for his intellect on the issues; I really didn’t give a crap about personality deficiencies because…well, I’m not someone who’s exactly comfortable socially, so I could associate with his inability to dumb down himself to Bush’s level in 2000.
As for my views on what being ‘progressive’ today means, as defined by the blogosphere, I tried to explain it in this dKos diary some time ago in distinguishing it from liberalism. They used to be synonyms, but I get the feeling that the two have divergent meanings, and the ‘progressive’ you speak of in this entry is more of ideological – making it synonymous with liberal – than it is with its broader meaning, which I think the netroots uses almost exclusively these days.
this, in the context of calling Representative Murtha progressive:
I get this to mean that you see “progressive” as standing for a kind of “no nonsense” reform movement in American politics. ie. something similar to what Howard Dean implied when he insisted he was both “centrist” (ie. not a typical liberal) and a “reformer” at the same time.
The “netroots/reform” theme runs deep. I think you’ve put your finger on one reason why both:
a) there seems to be reluctance to use the word “liberal” in the netroots, and
b) there are so many different polical views appearing under the umbrella of “progressive” at the present time.
I’m sure there are some “old school” progressive types…from when progressive implied “a left of liberal, willing to work outside Democratic politics” type activist…who would be surprised to find themselves in the same rubric as Murtha.
Maybe that’s why so many netroots progressives have kind words for John McCain. It’s the “straight shooting” reform thing. What do you think?
Question: As a progressive, how do you intersect with electoral politics? ie. What has your experience been with elections and candidates and what does electoral politics mean to you? What are your thoughts about this subject?
I began voting in Massachusetts in 1967, so my first voting experience saw Richard Nixon being installed to the detriment of the progressive movement up to that point. The two previous elections before that time were the highwater mark for progresive majorities in America, especially 1964. Little did I know that 1968 was the beginning of the end, at least until now.
As I wrtoe in the other day, below is how I describe progressive political social beliefs.
Some but not all of my progressive party principles would be:
–A social guarantee of certain critical human rights on an egalitarian basis. These rights take into account the human condition of certain need fulfillment (such as Maslow’s pyrimid), and also the security that is due all people as they age and cannot cope like they did while young. To put it another way, a social security guarantee as one loses time they cannot ever repeat.
–Social policy based on Science and proven facts over propaganda and myths. On a related basis, a clear separation between religious beliefs and state power.
–True Democracy without elitism of a ruling class, and whatever it takes to bring this about and keep it happening.
–A fiscally conservative position in that what society does and mandates is paid for through progressive and thus fair taxation, and not through debt and taxing the least able to pay.
–Finally for now, a living here and now individual’s complete control over their body unless and except under the most extreme social emergencies such as an epidemic effecting many others in an extremely adverse way or when mental infirmity clouds one vision.
I am not sure just why the progresive thinking in this country began declining in 1968, but I am not going to join the crowd now tauting greed, racism, and CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM as the new political-social norm. I think the majority of voters are not well served by that mentality, but they just don’t seem to realize it. FDR’s new deal came to life during very bad times caused by the greed-is-good group, and now that they are at it again, we must be getting nearer to that magic periodic time when the average American begins to open their eyes and ask the question, what is really AND REALITICALLY going to help me and my family find happiness and security in life. The answer to that will be found by following my generalized listed progressive policies, IMO!
Please make sure to include that list when I ask for your “progressive platform” planks.
I would like to see more specifics in that first plank. What human rights are you talking about outside of “Maslow’s pyramid”? I don’t quite understand that last bit about “social security” either; I don’t think you’re using the term in the conventional way, are you?
–A social guarantee of certain critical human rights on an egalitarian basis. These rights take into account the human condition of certain need fulfillment (such as Maslow’s pyrimid), and also the security that is due all people as they age and cannot cope like they did while young. To put it another way, a social security guarantee as one loses time they cannot ever repeat.
The social security guarantee is best illustrated by looking at the defined benefits pension fiasco going on now in many industries. For example, pilots who have to retire by federal law at 60 are having their pension contracts violated by bias bankruptcy courts, and the Federal safety net agency will only pay half of what many pilots worked an entire career for. To make matters worse, the federal safety net agency will not pay until 65, but again pilots have to retire at 60. The point is that these pilots in their late 50s can not go back and relive their lives. I suppose they could be more cautious in their next lives, but in this life, they are royally screwed by unfair business practices with the help of conservative government.
This type of overlooking the reality of aging with the screwing of older workers is becoming epidemic in America, and it is wrong. A political position of guaranteed fairness in retirement actions is a must, and the basic government sponsored social security program, while important, is not enough!
As for guaranteed human needs fulfillment, I am talking the lower levels of Maslow’s needs pyrimid. These are the physiologic needs that people must meet to survive, not the higher level luxury needs. It is just another way of saying that every citizen must have certain needs fulfilled in order to live a minimally satisfactory and secure life. For example, a minimum of Food, shelter, safety, healthcare, and ability to compete fairly for an even better life are among those needs fulfillments that everyone should have on an egalitarian basis, IMO.
Damn though, I knew you would be a demanding front pager and I knew you would be stimulating and hard working and invigorating and decisive. I also thought you would wait at least a couple of weeks though before requiring the solid base for the Progressive Democratic Platform out of all of us! I know the Democrats in charge are doing a super crappy pathetic job of getting this anywhere near done (they haven’t even started), and I know they need a bit of help (they haven’t even started and they don’t seem to really care) and I know that in truth we are probably going to have to do a lot of it ourselves and then threaten them into line when we have all the exuberance and perpetual energy here with us……but did you have to just lay it out there so definitively and plainly on a four day weekend? I’m just crushed! It isn’t even a weekend at all now facing all this damned work ironing out all these damned wrinkles in between all the progressive lines. Why have a blasted Holiday at all! Pass the Watermelon!
I just wanted to let folks know about this project and test the waters…see where people are at. Feel free to use this thread as you see fit…as always.
Maybe I should post my own comment…about where I’m coming from…Duh!
I am looking forward to the discussion, although I fully expect to gain a great deal more than I am able to contribute.
is sometimes unlabeled. I don’t even like the word snark when it comes to me usually……flippant and goofy would be better when I’m in that mind state (which happens a lot right now). I forget that you are new here even though I have read a lot of your stuff. So let me “reframe” (I sort of hate that word these days too because I’m really explaining in greater detail and carpentry really isn’t involved) my post. I expected great things from you but find myself still surprised because the pond is probably one of the finest places to be found to iron out some of those progressive wrinkles and lay some ground work that others may follow if they choose to do so. We respect each other here. I deeply respect and cherish the huge efforts that so many here put into various undertakings! We also find the time to hand out some nurture around here too because fighting the power really is hard work and can be really draining. It’s wonderful and really cool that as a front pager your awareness of all that has led you to the project you laid out…..and you are probably the best person out there to do it! Will you be the new the face of Nike? Just Do It? It’s probably a better slogan than mine which is usually Fuck the Fear!
You asked about our own involvement: My progressive political activity likely began when my dad took me into the voting booth with him to “help” him mark his ballot. He explained this was “how we made things work better”. Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement changed me into something of a cynic, and more of an activist. Living in two places with local governments run by deeply entrenched democratic party machines showed me that no party has any purchase on freedom from corruption, or moral superiority.
In the last election, I worked for Dean. Was galvanized into doing things I never thought I would do: call up strangers. Knock on doors. But my best and worst efforts were to analyze the changes in voting sites across the state. The state Dem Party relocated voting sites repeatedly up to the day before the primary, mostly in areas with particular political leanings. Efforts to stop this were rebuffed, to put it mildly. So, we made new maps for voters, for precinct walkers and poll watchers. I discovered a “mole” among our volunteers. It was exciting, appalling, exhausting, and highly, highly addictive.
My motivation isn’t the addiction, however. As a scientist, teacher, & advocate for children, I’m sick of seeing kids used as political photo opportunities, while their value is being degraded or upgraded in direct proportion to their family’s income and social status. And I’m tired of having science misused, suppressed, twisted, or promoted to serve corporate interests or religious beliefs. We are stewards of the future, and there are just two things to have watch care over: the people, and the planet. We have to take care of both now, to do right by who and what’s here after us.
this statement seems to be the core of your progressive values:
Care for our children, stewardship of the planet, policies in accord with science, an understanding of how class and income division distract us from someone’s inherent worth.
And then, in the first part of your comment:
Indicates to me that you are mistrustful of entrenched power and the two-party system, even though you were energized by Dean. The story about a “mole” (Democratic? Republican? Neither?) interfering with local voter information work and your dislike of empty campaign posturing speaks to what seems to be a fundamental mistrust of the “party politics” side of electoral politics.
Just to help get this thing started, I’m exhausted and need some sleep, but…
I’ve been very actively involved since the Spring of 2003. Howard Dean brought me in and I’m here at least through the 2008 cycle in some form.
I’m a volunteer mostly but I do have real-world political experience. I worked as a field organizer right out of college for a US Senator many moons ago and interned in my state legislature while in college. Last year I filled in as a communications director for a low-budget, grassroots state-wide candidate and worked about 25 hours a week for zero dollars. Before getting politically involved (again) in 2003, I had spent a decade active in various community and chuch activities/issues.
Since my invovlement in 2003, I’ve held local party office and fill in and help out wherever I’m needed; from using my strategic analysis skills and organizational abilities to making phone calls and knocking doors. Sometimes I fill in as a phone bank or canvass captain.
But I’m not a party guy or a political guy, though people who’ve known me and know me well would say I’m in denial about that.
For me politics is the only way to even out the playing field and to ensure that human needs are met and considered in everday life.
For me that’s where the rubber hits the road: Progressivism is about recognizing people’s humanity in the political sphere. And that’s why choice and full blown rights for GLBT couples are rubicons for me. To deny choice, to deny marriage in the civil realm to anybody, is to deny their essential humanity. And to me progressivism is about affirming people’s humanity and ensuring they have the materials and mental health needed to live fully awake lives in this world.
In the U.S. the Democratic party is they only way to fufill those goals at this point in time. However, I’m afraid that many democrats just don’t get it. Kevin Phillips, the ex-Nixon strategist and prolific author, calls the Bush regime and Bush family politics the disenlightenment, and a a “restoration”. That’s exactly right. We’re in the middle of a historical revolt that Ortega Y Gasset would be proud of against the mass of humanity who have seen both their political rights extended and their standards of living raised over the last two hundred years. Yes, there are many who have not seen these gains and there are many more gains that need to be won, BUT, that’s why we have to keep pushing forward, and why the Bush family is so dangerous.
by northcountry on soon
What I’d like to know…is how do you use those rubicons? Do you apply them to all candidates uniformly? Do some races or situations get a pass? Or do you mean your rubicons not so much as “pass/fail” tests as indicators of underlying values? As measures that can be “half full?”
When you write: “In the U.S. the Democratic party is they only way to fufill those goals at this point in time.”
I get the impression that you’re saying, in essence, you have both a vision for this world and very specific things you want…and while the Democratic Party isn’t what you’d have built to realize that vision, it is a way to:
a) get closer to that vision, and
b) resist the Rebpulican agenda
I think your “denial” line is interesting. It’s almost like it’s important for you to be able to see yourself as more of a “regular” person…but the fate of the earth/electoral politics keeps sucking you in…and sounds like it will for a good long time to come!
At any rate, there’s a kernal in there that links to a way of thinking I see in a lot of progressive politics: looking for ways to be political organically, as a part of one’s life, without all the bells and whistles of…rrr…TV talk shows, campaing ads and the like.
<BLOCKQUOTE[What I’d like to know…is how do you use those rubicons? Do you apply them to all candidates uniformly? Do some races or situations get a pass? Or do you mean your rubicons not so much as “pass/fail” tests as indicators of underlying values?]</BLOCKQUOTE>
They are more a reflection of underlying values. For instance, I don’t require a candidate to be vocal or an activist over these issues, but I do expect some measure of support and not a knee jerk reaction away from the issues, especially from democrats. That said, I did vote several times for an anti-choice republican for Congress when I lived in another state. He came in with the Reagan revolution. I voted for him because he walked the talk. He actually supported certain family planning programs and childhood health and education programs. Plus the dems never really ran strong candidates against him.
<BLOCKQUOTE[At any rate, there’s a kernal in there that links to a way of thinking I see in a lot of progressive politics: looking for ways to be political organically, as a part of one’s life, without all the bells and whistles of…rrr…TV talk shows, campaing ads and the like.]</BLOCKQUOTE>
That’s exactly it. That’s why we love your stuff K/O! You get it on so many fundamental levels.
We’re all in this life together and we all share a certain fundamental humanity. The very act of forming a community or an organization is political. How do we relate to one another? What are the shared rights and responsibilities of the community? How are resources allocated? The driving forces for me are the inherent worth and dignity of all people and the interdependent web of life (or systems theory, or ecology if you’re looking for a more scientific stance)
I think the history of progressivism is one of advancing the light against the darkness. In the Christian part of my religious tradition (Unitarian-Universalism) the early Universalists stood up for a god of Universal Salvation, rather than a god of pre-selection or dammnation, i.e. god so loved the world he gave his only son. In the Unitarian tradition, the scholar Michael Servetus (later burned at the stake by John Calvin) emphasized the humanity of Christ as opposed to the divinity of Christ.
As a buddhist I believe in compassion and boddichita (putting oneself in anothers shoes essentially).
A political party cannot by its very essence fully advance the values or dignity of the great mass of people. It can however make significant inroads-the abolition of slavery, the forty hour workweek, ssocial security, voting righs, access to healthcarte and quality learning.
In partisan politics we need to remember that it is messy and full of compromise. But to abandon politics is to abandon part of our everyday life, and to abandon your values is to abandon the self. So the key is to navigate a middle way that advances the greater good. That way is people-powered politics.
“Finally, I want to be clear that I can anticipate that for many readers here, discussion of elections AT ALL is impossible to do outside of the context of discussing election reform and verified voting. My hope is that this series will provide a context to do just that. “
wow. have you changed your previously stated position? is it ok to discuss voter disenfranchisement now? i may be hopelessly behind the times, because i confess that after this diary:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/6/185519/455, i don’t think i read another diary of yours until today…still depressed by this… you pretty much convinced me that when it counted you didn’t put voter rights first – party branding was more important. has that changed? i hope it changed long ago and i just didn’t know….
to put the past behind us and work on the task at hand.
Part of that task is building a list of the candidates, elected officials and organizations which are advocating voter rights.
I mentioned Debra Bowen here in California. Voting rights friends of mine have met her and say that she truly “gets it.”
What have you heard? Anyone else we should be looking at?
i’ve got a bit of a trust issue now.. after the 2000 election, the 2002, the 2004 election… each time i’m asked to forget history forget my own values and priorities and focus on the current election and what others consider possible in the short term. as much as i’d like not to feel this way (betrayal is not too strong a word)… probably, only time and alternative experiences will allow me to put it behind me.
as for who might get it… on the national stage – maybe gore? at the state level, don’t see much good. here in MA the voters passed a good clean election law and the democrats in the state legislature revoked it. (i should give a plug for my congressman, jim mcgovern – who i do think well of)
at the moment, i’m just looking for politicians who are willing to do the right thing – no matter what their motiviation is. i’ve become too cynical to look for “good intentions”. as for electoral politics – i’d like to see leiberman loose his senate seat to lamont. that’s something i’m willing to volunteer for.
mostly, i’ve become convinced that social movement politics is probably the way to go. the poltical system just seems so very broken… i don’t think participation in electoral politics alone will be enough.
it is sad that by avoiding the election issues dems hoped to maintain some trust in the “system”… but, the result has been the opposite. i can’t tell you the number of people who are aware and concerned and are now convinced that even voting is a waste of time, let alone more significant action – an attitude of “the dems don’t even support, let alone fight for fair elections, why should i even bother?” seems common now.
sigh. maybe it’s too late and i’m too tired to feel hopeful… tomorrow is another day.
I don’t get it. Who is asking you to forget history and your own values? Why do you have to focus on what others consider possilbe and not what you want?
You mention Gore and Lamont and your local MA congressperson, Jim McGovern.
That’s a start. But imo we need folks who have taken this cause up, who “get it.”
You mention that:
Number one, I didn’t know that. Tell us more. Gotta link to a news story? Where are the MA local blogs that wrote about this? Do you have one? Can we put pressure on the Dems who voted this down in the upcoming MA elections? That’s how we have to think.
It seems that your answer to the “electoral politics” question was this:
If that’s true, how will “social movement” work…or peer to peer work…advance the cause of election reform and voting rights? What are the youth outreach groups…or the music-based voting rights groups? Who’s tackling this problem from a “social movment” way?
I’m all ears. Let’s make a good list. Good things will come from gathering information. It’s empowering. That’s my point.
I know exactly how you feel.
Follow your conscience … and don’t let the party fearmonger you into doing so. I’m with you 100%, and I’ve had a belly full of promises that something will happen down the line.
To me, what is most important is changing what is considered possible in American politics. We need to change the common wisdom obout the permissable parameters of debate. Once we accomplish that, then we are on friendly terrain.
i’ve been told many times that “politics is the art of the possible”.
i’d rather think that politics is the art of making the impossible possible.
Very happy to agree with you here, Booman. Widening those parameters has to be THE crucial (larger) political task today. That can & must take many different forms & voices. I’m less optimistic, however, about ever gaining some friendly terrain.
I never wanted to be political. And after my experiences over the past few years, I find I want to be involved in politics less and less. But I do care about issues and the hard truth is that getting things done/changed means having to deal with politics.
My wake up call to activism came when the two unions to which I belong were on strike for six months. I became acquainted with ACORN, Jobs with Justice and the like. We were finally able to end our strike when we received incredible support from the Teamsters, sometimes at great cost to them individually. I started really thinking about solidarity and the common good and began supporting other unions’ organizing/strike activities. I ran for and was elected to my local union’s board.
Bush was elected about the same time and I was beside myself at the way things are going.
I got waaaaaay involved in the Dean campaign, Iowa, Wisconsin, fundraising in Illinois. After Dean was taken out, I couldn’t bring myself to work for Kerry, so I looked for a race I could get passionate about. I got involved in Christine Cegelis’ first campaign and worked hard on it. I got involved in her second campaign as well, until I moved from Illinois to New Mexico. I was sickened by the way she was treated by the Demomocratic party. I also worked on Obama’s campaign, which is something I now rather regret. I attended Wellstone Action’s campaign management training.
These experiences have taught me how much I detest, loathe, and am appalled by our political system. I vote Dem more often than not, but feel the party does not represent my values very well. They may represent them marginally better than the Repubs, but that’s about it. It seems that whenever an impassioned, progressive, honest person runs for office, the Dems will take them out before the Repubs have a chance to.
My focus of late has become more and more issue oriented. I do not have the temperament for politics. One thing I remember from my Wellstone training is that both electoral politics and issues activism are necessary for good governance. I figure I’d best work in the areas in which I feel I can be more effective. Ergo, electoral politics will not be my primary avenue for activism at this point in time.
what a saga.
Labor organizing, community acitivism, the Dean campaign and Christine Cegelis. You are an amazing resource here!
I don’t know if you’d agree with this…but…it’s interesting to me how, in my experience, Labor and electoral dovetail. They are both, in some ways “zero sum” win/lose battles. You either win the “vote” or you don’t. And there’s a whole culture to that. EVERYTHING depends on winning or losing.
One part of that is “burn out.” I read that in your post:
That statement gives a vibe of you having been chewed up and spit out by Democratic Party politics. You came looking for a way to work on your ideals…and you keep finding yourself thwarted in that. Burnt.
What do you think of the argument that, even when you lose, you make an impact? Do you buy it? Or do you think…hey, in a win/lose game…when you lose, you LOSE. What did the Christine people on the ground say?
I hope you keep participating in the EPP.
That is a very accurate encapsulation of my experience and my reaction to it.
As far as your question about losing. Well, clearly no one likes it, but it is different for different people. I am willing to stick to my principles and to keep fighting for them if therer is any chance I can hope for progresss in the long run. The Cegelis campaign devestated a lot of people. Some probably will not vote for Duckworth, period. Some will — either because they feel thay have no choice or because they have aspirations to becoming part of “the inner circle.”
What burns me is that the Dems themselves set out to destroy some of their best and brightest — because those people tend to be unbought and unbossed. It was also very frustrating at the local level in Chicago — of the 50 or so precints only one had meetings that were posted and open to anyone who wanted to come. I contacted my precinct chair a number of times about participating and never got an answer. A friend, in another precint, was asked to submit personal information and told “They’d get back to her.”
That is the sort of behavior I cannot support. And I see voting for entrenched pols who behave this way as the worst form of enabling.
I think the paradigm of focusing only on swing voters is really dumb. There are far fewer of them than there are of people who don’t vote. I think we should work on inspiring that group to come back to the process, and I don’t think that can happen when outsiders are unwelcome, hypocrisy is rife and money rules campaigns.
After the 2000 election, I became involved with the town government. Discouraged by national politics, I felt that some perceivable difference could be made by my presence there. I was appointed to a town board. Things have gotten accomplished but I’ve found that personality plays a large role at this level. People are micro-perceived and micro-analyzed. I have no experience in electoral politics other than my own voting experiences. (I had been taken out of the voting pool at the last election and was convinced that it was part of the right wing conspiracy rather than the clerical error that it probably was. But making a scene was fun!) So basically this a long way of saying that I have limited offerings for this discussion. It’s only since 2000 that I have been making the effort to learn more than the usual propaganda about candidates. I would be willing to help out.
and there will be more chances to do so all the way through.
Is there any issue or set of criteria you’d prefer addressed with the EPP (Electoral Politics Project)?
Is there a local candidate who inspires you?
I grew up in the 1970’s in a multi-racial neighborhood in St. Paul, MN. My parents were both involved in community organizing and urban renewal on a pretty “nuts and bolts” level. I have early memories of walking door to door passing out flyers…alot. Politics was both “local” and “community based.”
All through my high school and college years…which were the Reagan years…I got involved in the issue-oriented side of political activism. Central American solidarity, Amnesty International. Volunteering at homeless shelters. The punk movement.
In college, I had a chance to learn more about Labor and racial justice activism. Like many others I volunteered on Jesse Jackson’s ’88 campaign and then worked in the anti-apartheid and divestment movements with friends from Democratic Socialists of America and the Jackson campaign. I distinctly remember getting out of college, voting for Clinton in that big MTV Rock the Vote push in 1992…and then putting most electoral politics and even most activism behind me. (I spent a big chunk of the 90’s helping to build an arts non profit in Mpls…work that felt “political” but also more “natural” to me.) As far as electoral politics goes, the 90’s meant some small work for my local Senator, Paul Wellstone, and that was it.
By 2000, I lived in Oakland, CA, and I became reenergized for electoral politics. The Gore campaign and my feeling that Nader’s run was more hurtful than helpful to my urban community pulled me back in. I started doing GOTV and logged quite a few days of work leading up to the 2000 election…and have do so every election since.
Since that time, more and more, activism has meant doing electoral politics for me. Obviously, since the advent of the blogs I’ve been writing, both about electoral politics and politics and culture generally…alot. I still do GOTV, but, more and more, I am getting involved in local political campaigns.
I am not on any Democratic committees…nor am anything more than a “fellow traveller” with groups that require alot of meeting going, like DFA. I tend to vote Democratic and “strategic”…ie. to send a message, and hence often cast a ballot for Green candidates when I prefer them or think the Democratic candidate needs to wake up.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see electoral political activism as a powerful way to counterbalance this huge rightward drift in American politics. I’ve come to understand that “the law” is the expression of the people’s will through the legislature..and that if we disagree with what laws Congress makes, we need get involved in the system, not sit outside.
At the same time, I miss the feeling of “pure involvement” that issue oriented activism provides. Whether its the “food co-ops” and “neighbor to neighbor” vibe of my childhood. Or the “art with a conscience” vibe of my later years. There’s something organic about that kind of politics that the “mechanistic” politics of electoral politics leaves me hungry for.
Having met Jesse Jackson and Paul Wellstone back in the day, I can say that I do miss the “righteousness” that their campaigns brought to those of us who were activated by them. A way to do electoral politics and AGREE with one’s candidate at the same time. What a concept. The anti-apartheid movement was never about….well, raising money for the quarterly deadline and getting your candidate on TV.
It’s that side of electoral politics that frustrates me. It’s a “pre-set” world and culture. D.C. and TV shape the reality of U.S. elections. Even knocking on doors and doing call outs means working from a script. There’s something about that that leaves me hungry for other kinds of activism…even as I, truly, get more and more involved in the electoral side.
I also volunteered for Jesse in 1988 and we registered an amazing number of people that year. My work with Jesse and my internship in the state legislature was what landed me a job as a Field Organizer for a US Senator. When I read about Wellstone being elected two years later I was besides myself. Then there was Jerry Brown’s quioxtic run in 1992 which lit another fire under me.
You’re right that there’s no righetous fire driving electoral politics anymore, nor is there any intellectual heft and gravitas of the kind that was provided to us by people like Bill Bradley and Gary Hart.
I really thought we were on the cusp of something brand new between 1988 and 1992, even with the election of Bush I. I figured a party that combined the fire of Jackson with the brains of Bradley was going somewhere and taking all of us to the promised land with them. Then the party spent 10 years disintegrating. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens over the next 2-4 years.
I hardly ever work to help elect candidates, as opposed to issues on and off-ballot. Here in California there are umpteen ballot initiatives every year — not all states have these I understand — and in the last 20 years I’ve worked occasionally on issues from single-payer and reproductive health (statewide) to local propositions centering on environmental and social justice issues.
I’ve never asked myself before why my electoral activism has been mostly limited to issues not candidates. I guess it’s because I’m deeply cynical about people who run for office. I tend to think candidates will say anything to get elected, then turn around and screw the people who supported their election.
Here’s an example: in San Francisco when Matt Gonzalez earned a place in a toe-to-toe runoff with Gavin Newsome in the mayoral election a few years ago, I was very enthusiastic. Gonzalez was a Green, my own district Supervisor, and said all the right things as far as I was concerned. I gave his campaign a lot of money (well it was a lot for me) and did some GOTV. So did hundreds if not thousands of people like me who were excited to see a progressive with a chance at the mayor’s office for the first time in decades. Gonzalez lost but it felt like we had started building a new progressive movement in S.F. with Gonzalez as the spearhead. Instead he squandered every bit of our work and announced he would not seek reelection to the Board of Supervisors where he had been President. There wasn’t anyone else who could pick up where he left off. What a letdown.
Issues on a ballot are a lot harder to sell though. Oh I’m too tired to think more about this tonight and I have to tend to my daughter… anyway thanks K.O. for starting this discussion here. It will be very useful I think.
It reminds me of how pissed off I was when Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition…folded up shop and dissappeared from the national scene.
The 1992 presidential elections were a downer. (I’ve never bought Jerry Brown sorry to say.) It seems you had a similar experience with Matt Gonzalez.
This passage:
is really striking to me. Of course, it had occured to me before…but I had never really thought about it that exact way. Electoral politics is about…politicians. And politicians are schmoozers and “money-raisers”…and that breeds and ability to…say anything. Quid pro quo speech, in effect. Situational ethics.
You seem to be looking for something more straightforward. That’s a them that’s popped before in this thread.
I’m a lifelong political junkie, and occasional activist. My earliest political memory is watching the Nixon resignation. I’m a pretty hardcore Dem, though I’ve voted for rational Republicans over Dem’s who’ve gone round the bend. Arne Carlson for Governor of Minnesota over Perpich. Carlson was a moderate pro-choicer, and Perpich was an anti-choice Dem. Even so, it was tough flipping a switch next to an R. I’ve also voted (quite happily) for greens at the local level.
I’m a full time F&SF writer and sometime science curriculum writer married to a scientist, and the Republican war on science and fact has pushed me even harder Dem/left.
I’m primarily an issues voter and a pragmatist and that’s made me into a very hardcore environmentalist. I’ve never liked R positions, and as a science-driven environmentalist, I’ve been keeping a close eye on Al Gore’s career for a very long time. Clinton’s choice of Gore as a VP was a big part of what convinced me to push for Clinton instead of just voting for him. Both of the family cars had their bumpers stenciled with CLINTON GORE eight inches high. The 2000 election result radicalized me and for 2004 I quit doing my normal writing for 3 months to do op-eds and LTEs for small swing state papers. I also did door knocking as MoveOn ward leader during the last three weeks of campaign.
So, science, issues, environment, issues, pro-choice, issues, rational regulation, issues, social safety net, issues, least harm, issues. You get the picture. Find out what works for the greatest good for the planet and its people, then do that. If something isn’t working, stop. Use science to craft measurements to find out which is which. The Dems are not always good at this, maybe not even often, but the Reps are bloody awful and getting worse. I like the greens, but there’s an anti-science thread that runs through a lot of green rhetoric that I find very troubling.
I’m a Green. I voted Green in 2000 because i wanted to help them get their 3 percent that was needed to get matching funds and to be included in debates. And it was safe for me to do so in New York, where Gore won handily. Independent parties will never gain the access they need to compete unless risks are taken and votes cast. We need alternatives to the standard two party system, otherwise we get the same old, same old. And now, those of us true progressives and the democratic wing of the democratic party are being asked to jettison our ideals, cast off over half our constituency in the name of winning. But what will we win? Some of the so called democrats that we’re being asked to vote for are a step back. Way back. That’s not progressive. It’s regressive. And I have little to no faith that even if we do get one or more branches of government under democratic control that they would actually do anything, besides find a way out of Iraq, which is at the top of my political priorities. Pelosi has already said that impeachment is off the table. That to me is a glaring example of the democrats timidity…and it drives me crazy. At this point I’m inclined to stick with principle and vote my cpnscience, regardless of the outcome.
In 2004 I voted for Kerry for different reasons. Obviously Bush needd to be removed, and the Greens were advocating a safe states voting policy anyway. But look where that got us. He abandoned us the day after the theft. The democrats abandoned us too. With a few notable exceptions. Now they are undermining primaries, and pushing candidates that have no interest in women’s/human rights, are just as corporate (Biden and others) as any of Bush’s supporters, and advocate reaching out (Obama) to evangelists.
Needless to say, I’m pretty effing fed up with the democrats.
From Wikipedia
We can’t call ourselves Progressives if we’re willing to give guys like Casey our support in the name of winning. Winning what, exactly?
Brilliant! Said the Democrat to the Green.
Nice to be accepted by a democrat for a change. Thanks. I grew up a democrat, in a staunchly democratic family. But those were the old days. I want those democrats back. Feingold is a beauty. I like straight talkers, and he’s surely that.
Hey, we’re all in this together.
I’ve always been interested in politics, but in my 20’s and 30’s I moved around too much to ever get very involved in elections. The first campaign I ever worked on was Paul Wellstone’s. I’m proud of doing that, but I must admit that I was a bit disappointed that no one ever asked more of me. I’d go into the office and they’d assign me to some task – but no one ever got to know me or what I had to offer.
In 2003 I got really involved in the Dean campaign. I was so excited about it because my small bits of $ seemed to make a difference with everyone else and I was asked to use all of my talents in any way that I thought would help. This is what really sold me on Dean. Of course I loved his stance on the war – but it was really “people-powered” and that’s what I had been waiting for.
What the Dems did to Dean left a mark on me in terms of involvement in national politics. It stung me bad personally and I’m not sure what to do with it. I don’t trust most of our national leaders, but see the importance of getting Republicans out of control. For example, I’ve been hesitating getting involved in Amy Klobuchar’s senate campaign here in MN. On one level, I know she just has to beat Kennedy, but she seems pretty careful and does not seem to be speaking out clearly on the really important issues. So I’m on the fence now about all that.
I’ve also been involved in some local politics, although most positions are “locked up” with incumbent Democrats in my area. I run a small non-profit working with troubled kids and due to our government funding, have a lot of contact with city council, county board, school board and state legislators. I love that part of my job and have some elected officials who are real heros.
One of my concerns about electoral politics these days is that I think our standard GOTV actiities are completely outdated. I’ve done lit drops, door knocking and phone banking – and for the most part always thought they were a waste of time. I’m not sure what would work in our current culture, but I think we really need to start looking for alternatives.
Go volunteer for Mark Ritchie’s campaign. He’s running for SecState in MN and is truly a progressive reformer.
Another option is Keith Ellison, who is running for Congress in Minneapolis. He’s another progressive and needs all help he can get right now.
Bottom line, for me is that I no longer interact at all with electoral politics. This is a carefully considered personal choice, bsed on what I’ve lived what I’ve seen happen to this political system, and on what energy I still have to spend at this later phase of my life.
I just finished readin Granny D’s (Doris Haddock) book about her couragaous walk clear across the contry for election finance reform, when she was olver 90. It is packed full of pearly wisdom: I highly recommend it. I didn’t walk clear across the country like she did, but I sure feel like I have.
What I believe is this: if this county is going to e salvaged at all, it will many people fighting hard of many fronts at once, one of which is the electoral politics front. There are many many other fronts as well, from the grassroots up.
The more people that pick their own piece of the front line and stand firm on it no matter what, doing all they can from where they are, wth the skills and talends they have, the better chance we all have. I think it will be the overall outcome of small victories on many fronts…(rather than one concerted, united effort,) that will build needed momentum for positive change.
Its the hearts and the minds of distracted Americans right here at home that need to be awakened and won over first, before they will be ready to stand and act. There are nearly endless ways to do this, outside of participation in electoral politics.
So I stand with you all as a very enthusiastic cheerleader for all of your shared efforts on the electoral front, and I also cheeer for all who choose to devote ther energies on the other fronts as well.
It is the “doing”..the consistant, committed “doing” on many fronts..that matters the most.
My idea of a progressive is a pro-life person. No – I don’t mean anti-abortion. I mean a person who respects the dignity and sovereignty of every living creature. Okay – you burger-eaters are thinking “God, she’s extreme!” Emotionally I can be extreme, but I like to think I’m not intellectually and socially radical when I support labor unions, women’s rights, peacemakers and the Constitution. I think the climate that’s been created in America belies the desire of most all of us who love the community of the UNITED States.
We’re falling for the bread and circuses manipulation. Public discourse has been turned into a WWF wrestling match.
My first votes were cast in California against Nixon and against the death penalty. I saw myself as cursed to always be casting a vote against, and have worked hard to be really `for’ something or somebody before casting my vote.
I worked very hard for change in the presidential election of 2004. At this point, I really don’t care who is president. As far as I’m concerned the job is just a figurehead. Or, if I let my emotions speak for me, I could use the word puppet. I don’t want to waste my energy on people I despise, I don’t want to be distracted by the show. I want to work on getting control of Congress back in the hands of the people.
I’m very interested in the work of Unity08. And in local activism – having just moved to a deeply scarlet place. It would be wonderful to see us expand the sense of community that we share here out into the wider world.
My journey into progressive thought was based on past experiences. As a military veteran, I voted absentee vote throughout my career. I lived overseas for 14 years and viewed American politics as a civic responsibility. I also felt it was the only way I could express my views since talking against government policies and having a military career was not possible.
Upon retirement from the military, I began to explore different options to getting involved in local politics, but living in the DC area, it was a pain just to find out the information, and I was not interested in living in the area for an extended time.
When I moved to Florida, I decided to sign up as a poll worker during the elections. This is providing me with a unique look of how the voting system in Florida (Brevard County) works. For me, this is the right level of involvement until opportunities present themselves.
I have not been a person who voted straight party since I read their positions on the issues and research to see if they are being truthful. My biggest disappointment was Gore losing to Bush in 2000. I still can not get that bad taste out of my mouth. I have no involvement with active campaigning for specific candidates.
I think the electoral college is a institution whose time has passed. I believe the amount of money spent on political campaigns is far greater than the results we, as citizens receive. There is no two party system; it is a one party with two variations of light and dark. There is no reason for the variations of voting systems in our country. One methodology for voting should be adopted nationwide.
That’s it from my perspective.
I think this:
is fascinating. In effect, you got involved in “electoral politics” in the most direct way possible…by helping people vote. Kudos. I hadn’t thought to mention that.
Being a progressive means working to, er, progress, move forward.
And what are we moving forward toward? Making good on all the promises of the Declaration of Independence and Emancipation Proclamation and the Fourteen Points and the Four Freedoms and the UN Charter (figure that) and “Ask not…” and “I have a dream that…” and especially the promise made for us by Emma Lazarus.
There are political machines and candidates and consultants who don’t believe in progress but in a sham image of progress. There are others that don’t even bother to engage in hypocrisy. These are not our candidates. They know neither the public things (res publica) or democracy. That is just the bait on a hook to obtain personal privileges for life.
The politicians that we are looking to support must declare that era over and mean it.
That’s what we are looking for.
What we have to do this year is to ensure that the consolidated power of the Bush administration in Congress is broken.
That is a very different thing.
And if we find those politicians who are indeed progressive in this sense, getting a majority of voters will not be a problem. Well, not really, because we are still operating in a media environment that exalts the hawk-chickens and attacks the real veterans.